Uber has acquired Bing mapping technology, engineers from Microsoft

Uber has purchased a portion of Microsoft’s Bing Maps technology. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed although we do know the acquisition includes around 100 Microsoft software engineers (presumably those that worked on Bing Maps).

As you may know, Microsoft already sources a great deal of its Bing Maps data from other providers but has been collecting its own street-level, aerial and 3D maps for some time. Moving forward, it will now source those assets from third-parties as well, freeing up the development team to focus on the overall user experience.

Re/code reminds us that Uber recently hired former Google mapping executive Brian McClendon. The engineers transferring over to Uber will be part of a new division that reports to him.

This is the second mapping acquisition for Uber in the past three months. Back in March, the wildly popular transportation provider bought San Jose-based mapping startup deCarta. Just last month, Uber reportedly joined a long list of companies interested in acquiring Nokia’s Here mapping division.

Other names on the short list are said to include Amazon, Apple, Audi, Facebook, Samsung and Yahoo.

It’s worth mentioning that the deal with Microsoft doesn’t necessarily mean that Uber is no longer interested in Nokia’s Here platform. What’s more, although not expressed by either company, it’s probably a safe bet to assume Microsoft will retain licensing rights to the mapping data it’s handing over.